French hostage in Somalia dead

Al-Shabaab, the Somali terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda, has announced it has executed the French hostage, Denis Allex.

By Mike Pflanz

8:41AM GMT 17 Jan 2013

Al- Shabaab said Dennis Allex was executed at 430pm local time on Wednesday, but it provided no proof.

Paris has insisted that according to its information, the intelligence agent was killed in the first minutes of an attempt to rescue him that was carried out in the early hours of Saturday morning.

That operation went awry when Islamist fighters were alerted to the incoming French special forces team and their six helicopters, and in the gunbattle that followed, one commando was killed and another wounded. He died from his injuries on Monday.

Al-Shabaab said in a statement their decision to kill Allex was unanimous and followed three years of what it called "exhaustive attempts at negotiations" over his release.

“With the rescue attempt, France has voluntarily signed Allex’s death warrant,” al-Shabaab said in a statement posted earlier via its Twitter feed.

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“[We] have reached this decision after three years of exhaustive attempts at negotiations but the French proved to be disloyal. Allex has also left behind a wealth of information that was retrieved during interrogation sessions.”

On Wednesday, Edouard Guillard, chief of staff for the French armed forces, told Europe 1 Radio there had been nothing since the raid to suggest Allex was alive and the rebels were engaged in "media manipulation."

"We think he is likely dead," Guillard said.

French President Francois Hollande said he took responsibility for the failed rescue operation of Allex, calling it "heavy with consequences."

"It involved the death, the assassination, of the hostage and two soldiers were taken," Hollande said. "I fully stand by this operation. Because it's also a message we're sending. France cannot accept that its nationals be taken."

Allex was one of two officers from the DGSE intelligence agency kidnapped by al Shabaab in Mogadishu in July 2009. His colleague, Marc Aubriere, escaped a month later but Allex had been held ever since in what Hollande on Wednesday called "abominable conditions".

In October, the militants uploaded a video of Allex pleading with Hollande to negotiate his release and save his life. Hollande said at the time the government was seeking to start talks with any party to facilitate his release.

After Allex's abduction, al Shabaab issued a series of demands including an end to French support for the Somali government and a withdrawal of the 17,600-strong African peacekeeping force propping up the U.N.-backed administration.

"Efforts were repeatedly hampered as the DGSE proved to be unreasonably apathetic and wilfully uncooperative," the rebels said.

Al Shabaab wants to impose their strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, across the Horn of Africa state, though it has lost significant territory in southern and central Somalia in the face of an offensive by African troops. The rebel group, which formally merged with al Qaeda in February last year, is known to mete out beheadings and amputations and has banned music and football in areas under its control.